Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv
“Both a pleasure and a testament to life in Ukraine, before” Sunday Times
“Ukraine’s greatest living novelist” New European
“A Ukrainian Murakami” Guardian
A love letter to the beautiful city of Lviv, by the author of Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees.
Strange things are afoot in the cosmopolitan city of Lviv, western Ukraine. Seagulls are circling and the air smells salty, though Lviv is a long way from the sea . . .
A ragtag group gathers round a mysterious grave in Lychakiv Cemetery – among them an ex-KGB officer and an ageing hippy he used to spy on. Before long, Captain Ryabtsev and Alik Olisevych are teaming up to discover the source of the “anomalies”.
Meanwhile, Taras - who makes a living driving kidney-stone patients over cobblestones in his ancient Opel Vectra – is courting Darka, who works nights at a bureau de change despite being allergic to money.
The young lovers don’t know it, but their fate depends on two lonely old men, relics of another era, who will stop at nothing to save their city.
Shot through with Kurkov’s unique brand of black humour and vodka-fuelled magic realism, Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv is an affectionate portrait one the world’s most intriguing cities.
Translated from the Russian by Reuben Woolley
“Ukraine’s greatest living novelist” New European
“A Ukrainian Murakami” Guardian
A love letter to the beautiful city of Lviv, by the author of Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees.
Strange things are afoot in the cosmopolitan city of Lviv, western Ukraine. Seagulls are circling and the air smells salty, though Lviv is a long way from the sea . . .
A ragtag group gathers round a mysterious grave in Lychakiv Cemetery – among them an ex-KGB officer and an ageing hippy he used to spy on. Before long, Captain Ryabtsev and Alik Olisevych are teaming up to discover the source of the “anomalies”.
Meanwhile, Taras - who makes a living driving kidney-stone patients over cobblestones in his ancient Opel Vectra – is courting Darka, who works nights at a bureau de change despite being allergic to money.
The young lovers don’t know it, but their fate depends on two lonely old men, relics of another era, who will stop at nothing to save their city.
Shot through with Kurkov’s unique brand of black humour and vodka-fuelled magic realism, Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv is an affectionate portrait one the world’s most intriguing cities.
Translated from the Russian by Reuben Woolley
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Reviews
Kurkov draws us with deceptive ease into a dense complex world full of wonderful characters
A latter-day Bulgakov . . . A Ukrainian Murakami
A post-Soviet Kafka
A kind of Ukrainian Kurt Vonnegut
Ukraine's greatest living novelist New European
Both a pleasure and a testament to life in Ukraine, before
The characters are lovingly drawn and exude the sort of warmth with which the author imbues all of his creations. You enjoy the time spent in their company
A craftily constructed novel that undermines and transforms itself in a consistently enjoyable manner without the haze of purple prose.
Charming . . . A love letter to Lviv, Ukraine's linguistic and cultural capital
Playful and ebullient, shot through with magical twists and supernatural turns . . . A reminder of Kurkov's prodigious storytelling gifts and a throwback to an earlier, happier age
Entertaining and poignant . . . A multi-layered, Chagal-like picture of modern-day Ukraine.
This beguiling literary postcard from a recent, now supplanted past brims with the bittersweet charm and rueful satire of the books, such as Death and the Penguin, that established Kurkov's international reputation